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Monday, November 7, 2011

Moving in and having hardwood flooring installed at the same time - Part 2

Having flooring installed after a move-in would not be bad if it were one or two rooms. However, we were having the entire house done!!

During this time, there was....

NO TELEVISION.....NO INTERNET......NO TELEPHONES....ok, we had cell phones. We had better keep them charged up or we wouldn't have that either :(

This first week we rented dvds and watched other dvds we already owned. I was missing all of my good shows.

So, I decided to use my cell phone to connect a laptop of the internet. I had never done that before. Sprint has unlimited data, so that is good. We connected the laptop to the tv and I was able to catch up on my favorite shows.

That was the first week.

The day finally came for the flooring installers to begin....Monday, October 3. Larry and I had both taken off from work to make certain we were all on the same page since Larry's office and game room would have different flooring.

By 10 am, I am wondering where the installers are....by 11 am, I am calling Home Depot....The HD rep is trying to get the 3rd party installers to let her know what is going on.....

We call HD back at 1...she has heard nothing.....At 4 pm, we find out the installers assigned to our home were running late on their last job.

They would not be starting until Tuesday, October 4. Ok, Larry and I would have to stay home another day. Not good news to tell bosses :(

So, Tuesday morning was spent with arguing about leveling material (float) and furniture being in the house. The installers had been told we paid for 10 bags of float. However, Home Depot had not delivered it. The installer didn't know that he was supposed to provide it.

Also, the installer was told that the house wouldn't have any furniture. Yes, when the installation was to begin September 26, there would not have been any furniture, however, as we told Home Depot a dozen times, if they didn't begin the install until October 3, there WOULD be furniture....HEAVY furniture.

I had to leave at noon to go to work and the installers were still waiting for the Home Depot rep to get back with them.....nothing being done.

When I got home from work, some carpet had been pulled up and some float had been applied. A lot of furniture was more jammed than ever. Our movers were going to bring the rest of our heavy furniture the following Saturday and the refrigerator was being delivered Friday.

Our oldest son, Richard, is staying with us. He has been a tolal lifesaver in all of this. It's wonderful to have your own private superintendent.

During this time, Larry was sleeping in his office recliner and I was sleeping on a borrowed sofa. Many sleepless nights and back pain.

Finally, one room is done...the dining room. The flooring is beautiful.

Here is our dining room and make-shift sleeping quarters in the dining room.

Richard's bedroom, foyer, the guest bedroom, the 2 and 1/2 baths and the utility rooms were NOT having the flooring changed out. So, these were the rooms were everything was piled up.

Larry's office became the installer's workroom.

Leveling material and fans to dry it were everywhere!

After 3 solid days, our bedroom and closet were done:

The installers even set our bed up. A bed....lovely....We could actually sleep in a real bed after 2 weeks!!!

Amazon had delivered my new books and I had a bed. I was in Heaven!!!

More progress would be made over the next week. It took 2 1/2 weeks to get this done.

After all was said and done, the flooring was beautiful. 10 years ago, Larry and I could have put this flooring down. Not now. Back and knee and hip problems have stopped many of the wonderful DYI projects we loved in Cottage #1. Those days were over.

There were are are many more projects to be done. As I write this a month later, I can tell you many have been done. Richard, our oldest son is actually working on the painting and trim in rooms we went basic on with the builder.